Number II: Is there an Equivalent to Beer Goggles in International Diplomacy, and If So, How Do You Get that Dog of a Third World Country Off Your Hands And Out The Door Without Promising to Call Her?

A couple months ago, I wrote an article about the government's plans for a war in Iraq. That article was based on the underlying assumption that we either wouldn't be willing or couldn't come up with a good enough excuse to pony up the soldiers ourselves to get the job done. I was wrong; it turns out Bush wants this more badly than I had any conception of, and given the flaws with using a proxy force outlined in that article, we will probably be commencing this operation with a couple hundred thousand U. S. troops. Seeing that this is the case, I have some good news: The war ought to be over in an eyeblink. I'm with Don Rumsfeld on this one. Iraqi generals do what Saddam says because if they don't he'll kill them. If he's not gonna be around to do that any more, then they will probably defect. No army, no fighting, no dead American soldiers.

Which is all to the good, and neatly takes care of most of the objections to an Iraqi war that most Americans have. But as I tried to point out in my previous article, the problem with a having war with Iraq is not the war bit. It's what happens after the war is over. The only reason for us to go to war with Iraq is to replace Saddam's aggressive, totalitarian government with one that is stable and friendly to us. There are two ways to do that: The Easy Way, and The Hard Way. Hopefully in this article I can clarify some of the risks associated with each method; neither have been much discussed in the media I've been reading, and I think they're pretty important.

The Easy Way is to allow a military figure and member of the ruling Sunni elite to take power, crack down on any rebels, and sell us oil. I do not think we are so craven as to allow this to happen immediately after the invasion; no, I think it more likely that we will stick around for a year or so, find some sort of Iraqi Hamid Karzai to put a friendly face on the government we hand–pick (oops, I'm sorry –– the cultural and political leaders we will be working with closely) and maybe hold some elections. Then we will get our troops the fuck out. And the country will crumble, as everyone who got screwed over when the occupation forces were doling out the goodies will be trying to get theirs. Either the government will turn to the army or the army will take over on its own initiative. Order will have been restored, and we'll be looking at a situation where we can either invade –– again, to depose a despot who seems to be the only one who can hold the country together and with whom we can deal–– or deal. Since the likelihood of this situation occurring is based on the presumption that Americans don't want to be imperialists, that the prospect of having an occupation force stationed in a foreign country, surrounded by enemiesFootnote 1

, for years, perhaps a decade, will prove an intolerable irritant to the voting populace, the chances of a second invasion to restore democracy in this scenario are slim to nil.

The Easy Way is nice short term, but creates a lot of longterm problems, which I'll rant about at the end. The Hard Way, might, just possibly, work out better long term, but in the short term it causes all kinds of problems. The Hard Way is to go in with an occupation force capable of enforcing order throughout the country, set up a government, and sit there until the Iraqis actually begin to trust it. In other words, something similar to what we did to Japan post WWII.

The Occupation of Japan took seven years, required tens of thousands of military and civilian personal, and involved changing the national religion, forming an entirely new government (with a Constitution written by General Mac Arthur's Secretary, according to legend), rebuilding a absolutely devastated economy (and a few cities, while we were at it) and, even after we pulled out, strong–arming the government we had just created into allowing us to keep a few military bases there.

The Occupation of Iraq will be much more difficult in several ways. I'll describe two of the key differences.

1. We had an extremely good reason for occupying Japan. We have an arguably good reason for occupying Iraq, and the difference is significant. The vast majority of the American public wasn't going to stand for any sort of Pearl Harbor II, and they didn't care what it cost or how long it took to make sure that didn't happen. Plus they had the fresh example of Hitler rising on a wave of resentment over Germany's treatment post–WWI, to convince them enemies needed to be more than just defeated, they needed to be turned into allies. The international community was either destroyed or grateful to us after the war; nobody was gonna fuck with us, or even tsk–tsk us, for what we did in Japan. The U.N. didn't exist. In other words, you had an incredible level of domestic support and absolutely no international opposition.

Not the case for Iraq, for which there is middling domestic support –– we all agree Saddam's a baaaad, baaad, man, right? –– and plenty of international opposition. I tend to believe that the middling support this adventure enjoys now will dissipate rapidly the day after the war is won. As soon as the American public begins to get a sense of what this is actually gonna cost. Round about three months after the war's over, when the yellow ribbons are falling off the oak trees and middle America is sitting in front of its television scratching its head while it listens to Stone Phillips try to explain the differences between the Sunnis and Shias and the Kurds and the Turkamens and the marsh peopleFootnote 2

, right about then I think most of America is gonna think to itself: "What, exactly, have we gotten ourselves into?" See The Easy Way, above.

2. We crushed the Japanese utterly. Island by island by island, we marched through the South Pacific. Then we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 6 years of war (more, if you start counting from the occupation of Manchuria) had left the economy in total collapse and the population on the edge of starvation. Then, once we began the occupation, the first thing we did was dismantle their army like a broken toy. If the Japanese felt humiliated, or angry, or that we were unfair, they had no way to fight back. The population was too busy trying to find food to eat and some fragment of a roof over their heads; the army had been decimated and, just in case, we had the bomb. Plus, you know, they started it.

None of these things are true of Iraq. We're after 'regime change,' here, remember? Not "civilization change." If we're smart we'll take extra care not to fuck with the civilian population during the actual war –– bombing babies, even Baghdad babies, looks hella bad on CNN –– and if all goes according to plan most of the Iraqi forces are supposed to either surrender or defect. So instead of an utterly humiliated and defeated population worrying about its daily bread, you'll have an active, restive, politically interested population getting its first taste of freedom in more that 30 years. If they like it, they might want to be free of us, too, and as quickly as possible. We saved the French from the Nazis, and they don't like us; the Iraqis didn't even asked to be saved. Nor did they take it upon themselves to attack us. We took it upon ourselves to "liberate" their country by overthrowing their government and imposing one on them which is more to our liking. In the olden days this was known as "conquering." Don't be surprised if most Iraqis are like, "Thanks for killing the bastard. Now get the fuck out of my country."

More importantly, Iraq will still have its army, intact. This is something we want; if Iraq doesn't have an Army they'll have to borrow ours until they can put one together, which means lots and lots of troops staying in Iraq for a long, long time. Now, the Iraqi army is not in great shape, and will be in even worse condition the longer the war goes on. But Iraq is still one of the largest countries, population–wise, in the Middle East, occupying a key geographical area. Proportionately, its Army is huge. And its Generals realize this. Could the Iraqi Army hope to defeat American forces? Hell, no. Could the Iraqi Army overthrow the Iraqi government pretty much any time it wanted without the presence of American forces?Footnote 3

Hell yes, which takes us straight back to the Easy Way option, above. So while the occupiers of Japan didn't have to worry about the possibility of rebellions or coups d'étate, those will be a very real concerns for an American occupation force in Iraq.

Now I'm going to tell you something shocking. I support the Hard Way. See, while I think invading Iraq may be the worst foreign policy blunder I witness in my lifetime, it seems pretty clear we're going to do it anyway. And there is the slim possibility that, if we are respectful of the wishes and desires of the Iraqi people, and set up a government they can respect, spending billions and billions of dollars and useing thousands and thousands of troops over the course of maybe a decade of helping to prop up that government, until both the army and the people seem willing to obey it, the Iraqis might actually come to appreciate the whole democracy thing. If that could happen, well then hell, me and Paul Wolfowitz agree on something: a stable, prosperous, democratic Iraq would be a good thing for the world and an excellent thing for the Middle East.

What I have outlined above might be designated The Hard Way A: The Right Way. In order do things the right way, however, will we have to make two very serious concessions: We will have to give power to the Shia majorityFootnote 4

, and we will have to allow the Kurds a significant amount of autonomy.Footnote 5 In other words, we will be risking putting a government in power which is neither stable nor friendly to us; and, as I mentioned at the beginning, this is the only reason to go to war with Iraq in the first place.

There's another way to go about The Hard Way; we might call it The Hard Way B: The Wrong Way. Because doing things the right way presents the risk of not achieving our overriding objective, I think that this is the more likely outcome, should we choose to go about this the Hard Way. You might also call it my own personal doomsday scenario. You might find it refreshing, as it involves no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons being used on U.S. troops or U.S. and Israeli civilians, by Saddam or Al Qeada or anybody else. Not that there's anything about this scenario which necessarily precludes such a thing happening, but Weapons of Mass Destruction need not come into play for this particular nightmare to come to life.

It goes like this: We win the war quickly and easily with few casualties. We then set up a transitional government backed by American troops consisting mostly of Iraqi exiles (a large portion of whom have been living in the West for the past 30 or 40 years), some leading Sunni political, military and business figures who had been tight with the regime but who defected right quick when we started a'–bombin', and a token Shia or two. A government in other words, which is friendly to us but which does not truly represent the Iraqi people. A government, in other words, which the Iraqi people will look at and say, "This isn't a democracy, it's American imperialism. And I, for one, am a patriotic Iraqi."

Then the guerrillas start coming. Maybe it's the Sunnis who start it, maybe it's the Shia, maybe it's the Kurds. Very possibly it's all three. But either way, these are the people we came to liberate. Which limits what the American soldiers can do to protect themselves –– a conquering army can engage in subjugation, a liberating army cannot. Hearts and Minds, people, hearts and minds. Meanwhile, the diplomats are beginning to realize that deals are going on behind their backs, intrigues and rivalries are coming into play among the members of the government –– but who is involved with what they don't know, because they're out of their depth, and there's nobody in the American delegation with enough knowledge of Iraq and its players to tell them.Footnote 6

Suspicion starts to rise on all sides. The more the government falters, the more resentments starts to manifest among the common people. The soldiers find themselves attempting to "protect" an ungrateful population, some of whose members are trying to kill them and occasionally succeeding. Eventually, this will lead to a poor judgment call, an error, one man snapping perhaps: Mai Lai. Bloody Sunday. More recruits for the Real Iraqi Liberation Front.

You might want to cast your mind back at this point to this whole "War on Terrorism" thing that we're supposed to be having. Remember how all the bad guys seem to come from the Middle East? Particularly Saudi Arabia, which is –– gasp –– right next to Iraq? And how Iraq's other next door neighbor is Iran, the second member of the Axis of Evil? If we go about the invasion the Wrong Way, Iran, at least, will be happy. Hell, Iran will feel like it's Christmas and their birthday all rolled into one, because they'll have been handed a patriotic cause –– helping their Shia brethren liberate themselves from the American occupiers. This ought to provide a nice distraction for their own restless population, maybe rekindle a little revolutionary fire in the younger generation. It was Iranian support of the Hizbollah that finally got the Israelis to leave Lebanon; they've got all kinds of experience in this area.

All sorts of whacky things could happen in Saudi Arabia, whose ruling elite might well decide that the message of an Iraq invasion is "Look what happens to Middle Eastern autocrats who piss us off." 5 bucks for a gallon of gas, anyone? Their population already doesn't like us. Occupying Iraq will put several thousand U.S. troops smack dab in the middle of enemy territory. The radical mullah's will love it: "Now you don't even have to go overseas to kill the infidel, boys! You can commute!"

And pretty soon we're sending another 20,000 troops in as reinforcements, and nobody has any idea when they're gonna get back out again. Or worse yet, we finally pull out and try and let the generals take charge, but by then it's too late for the Easy Way, and the country breaks apart. Whatever happens, and I cannot emphasize this enough, it will be all our fault.

Bet that Easy Way thing is starting to look pretty appealing, huh? Why not get out while we still can, right? If a general does take power, the American public probably will shrug their shoulders and say, "Hey, we gave 'em their shot at having a respectable government, they threw it away. At least we got rid of Saddam."

That is not what the rest of the world will think. Everyone else on the planet thinks invading Iraq is a bad idea in the first place; if we allow another dictator to take power, the rest of the world will think, "So, all this freedom and democracy crap you guys constantly spout off about is just the purest bullshit, huh? Glad to have that confirmed. How many civilians did you kill in that war? Y'know, maybe the world would be a better place with you assholes not in it." Note that I said they'll think this, not say it; we are still far too powerful for any nation to voice such an opinion openly, if they held it. But long term, the potential consequences of not living up to our own rhetoric in Iraq are grave indeed. The outside world will probably view our actions as being solely motivated by the desire to have cheap oil (or at least this is what they will think of our government; the public at large they may well view as dumb enough to have bought into the Weapons of Mass Destruction smokescreen the Bush administration threw up). Coupled with things like the our failure to sign Kyoto Accords, our resistance to the International Criminal Court, the way we throw our weight around with the World Trade Organization, further evidence of the extent to which our government is willing to employ our tremendous power –– that is, to the extent of using military force –– to advance the goals of the United States without regard for the concerns, the interests, even the rights of other nations may be a sufficient motivation to unify the fractious international community. The Lilliputians might decide to get their shit together and tether Gulliver.

But this is thinking long term, 10 or twenty years down the road. Many things could happen to change this path, but the fact remains that the September 11th terrorist attacks have changed something, fundamentally, in America's outlook on the world. They have made us more willing to use our power to protect our ass, and damn what the world thinks. For most of the post cold war era we were a sleeping giant –– our economy was three times the size of our nearest competitors, our army larger than the next 6 largest combined (and better equipped and trained) and with the possible exception of the McMurdo research station on Antarctica, there ain't any place on the damn planet where you can't get some McDonald's fries and watch a Bruce Willis movie. But we have not used these capabilities to their fullest extent, have not forced the rest of the world to see how little we really need them. When they realize this they will be frightened. And if we continue to demonstrate that to them every day and in every way, they may become frightened enough to act.

Still, if I'm right about all of that I ought to quit writing for you folks and get my ass an infomercial and a psychic phone line. "Call me now, Condoleeza Rice, fo' ya Free Readin'!" On the other hand, I've heard that there's a Chinese curse that translates as, "May you live in interesting times." Casting my eyes about me, my friends, I believe I note a scenic overlook at the crossroads of history. So let's all hope that I'm a pompous ass.